The man with the wildland gear strapped to his chest and the red bandanna on his brow talked a good game when he showed up at the Shambhala Mountain Center early Friday afternoon.

A small team of community members at the Buddhist retreat were preparing the facility in case the High Park fire crept closer. They wouldn’t turn down the help of the purported federal firefighter who had shown up earlier at a briefing at the local firehouse.

“He knew his stuff. He gave helpful information,” said Zane Edwards, whose Tibetan title “rusung” means he’s in charge of health and safety at the center. “He had with him maps. A radio. He could have genuinely wanted to help us out.”

But by the next day, Michael Maher, 30, was charged with a felony for allegedly stealing supplies meant for crews battling the High Park blaze. He was also charged with impersonating a firefighter, obstructing a peace officer and attempting to influence a public servant.

He was advised of those charges Monday afternoon in the Larimer County Jail. He had been spotted two days earlier wandering through the fire zone in his truck and arrested at a LaPorte bar that night.

It’s hardly Maher’s first run-in with the law — or his first time passing himself off as a firefighter.

Law enforcement agents in the mountain communities of Eagle County know “ol’ Mike Maher” by name and can recount offhand his persistent probation violations and bizarre run-ins with local police.

Maher has been convicted of sex assault, faced harassment complaints from multiple women, had himself shot in the stomach and been the subject of a protection order after allegedly stalking a police chief’s daughter.

Court records show he has avoided serious time by pleading some charges down to misdemeanors and has benefited from work-release and other probation programs.

Former Avon Police Chief Brian Kozak remembers Maher, who worked for a local tree service, walking around town dressed as a firefighter and carrying a chain saw or other tools.

“He likes to seek attention that way. It’s probably the way he tries to get close to people,” Kozak said. “They trust him if he’s a firefighter, but his motives are kind of creepy.”

Kozak knows from experience. He took out the first restraining order of his 20-year law enforcement career on behalf of his daughter after Maher allegedly showed up daily for a month at her workplace.

Even in jail, Kozak said Maher told other inmates he was dating Kozak’s daughter. At one point, the Kozak family believes, he showed up in their driveway.

At least three other women have complained of harassment by Maher, either through unwanted contact or repeated phone calls.

The former Avon chief, who has since moved on to head the Cheyenne Police Department, said Maher’s family has a second home in Beaver Creek. Records show they hired a high-powered Denver defense attorney for at least one of the criminal cases against him.

They couldn’t be reached for comment Monday.

Maher’s first and most serious run-in with Colorado law enforcement came after a 14-year-old girl said Maher had sex with her multiple times. One of the girl’s friends, whose age is unknown, told Vail police that Maher raped her when he gave her a ride home in a separate incident.

Maher was 21 at the time.

Somehow, those charges were pleaded down to a misdemeanor count of third-degree sexual assault.

A spokeswoman for the Eagle County district attorney’s office didn’t know why that happened in Maher’s case but said it’s common when victims are reluctant to stand trial or when there are other complications.

Maher is still a registered sex offender.

He has repeatedly told police, including in the alleged rape case, that he’s a firefighter, though it’s unclear whether he served on a fire crew at any point.

In a domestic-violence report from May 2004, an Avon police officer spotted Maher carrying a fire axe and following a frightened woman down the street, records show.

“Maher told (us) that he was a firefighter, and because of that, we should just let him go,” wrote Officer Stephen Hodges in his account from that night.

After an ex-girlfriend threatened to take out a restraining order against Maher in 2010, he showed up shirtless and bleeding in a parking lot near where he last spoke with her, records show.

He said two men shot him in the stomach, and responding officers noted “all he wanted to do is talk about the restraining order.”

Later, at the police station, Maher confessed he had asked a friend to shoot him with a rifle.

“I should have had him shoot me in the (expletive deleted) head,” he told officers, according to police reports.

Until Saturday, that was the last law enforcement had heard of Maher. Not that his arrest surprised Kozak, who said Maher has always given him “the creeps.”

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